| Show UTAH PRESS ASSOCIATION of metal plates and rubber blankets The result is extremely good reproduction Itinteresting that very few envisioned the offset process as the procedure that would free newspapers from the limitations imposed by letterpress Aside from increased speed of production and from time to time improvements in stereotype equipment therebeen very little change in newspapering for half-a-century When veterans of what came to be known as The Offset Revolution look back on the past three-plus decades during which offset has almost totally replaced letterpress in newspapering most agree two significant develop ments more or less triggered the revolt One was offset web-perfecting printing presses While some smaller papers were already being produced by offset they were coming off sheet-fed equipment and were tabloid size Among the first was one in Utah the Summit County Bee of Coalville Its transition to offset in 1953 wastemporary means to an end though and it soon returned to letterpress At that same time portions of the Southern Utah News in Kanab were being printed onsheet-fed offset press While neither paper exists today the Dragerton Tribune and the Blanding Outlook were also Utah papers which pioneered that process In March 1964 the Tremonton Leader converted to offset on sheet-fed equipment 22x34-inch EBCO press It continued until the paper changed hands the new owners moving toweb press in 1967 Probably the last Utah weeklies to switch from sheet-fed to web were the Manti Messenger and the Ephraim Enterprise both published by Max Call Theybeen converted to offset by Larry Stahle who sold them to Call in 1972 Whenbought the papers from Larry he was printing on sheet-fed EBCO press manufactured by the Electric Boat Company which had specialized in making submarines during World War II Call recollects They should have stuck with submarines We called it the Green Monster got by with that machine until newspaper producers switched to 30 1b instead of 32 1b newsprint he continued 224 Digital image 2005 Marriott Library University of Utah Al rights reserved |
